The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
Baruch SpinozaRead
How would it be possible if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labor be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that valuable and excellent things require effort to achieve and are often overlooked because of their difficulty.
Baruch Spinoza reflects on the paradox of salvation being readily available yet largely neglected by people, emphasizing that truly excellent outcomes are challenging to attain and uncommon. This conveys the idea that worthiness and value are often accompanied by significant effort, highlighting the human tendencies to overlook or undervalue what requires hard work.
Themes
SalvationEffortExcellenceChallengeValue
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about the importance of hard work in achieving one's goals.
More from Baruch Spinoza
All quotes →A man is as much affected pleasurably or painfully by the image of a thing past or future as by the image of a thing present.
Baruch SpinozaRead
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Baruch SpinozaRead
No one doubts but that we imagine time from the very fact that we imagine other bodies to be moved slower or faster or equally fast. We are accustomed to determine duration by the aid of some measure of motion.
Baruch SpinozaRead
Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. [They are the two sides of a coin, so learning how to manage fear through learning, understanding, rationality, controlled imagination, preparation, mental focus (including distraction) and a gratitude attitude is very helpful.]
Baruch SpinozaRead
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Baruch SpinozaRead
Similar quotes
Be humble and you will remain entire. The sages do not display themselves, therefore they shine. They do not approve themselves, therefore they are noted. They do not praise themselves, therefore they have merit. They do not glory in themselves, therefore they excel.
LaoziRead
Everybody knows if you are too careful you are so occupied in being careful that you are sure to stumble over something.
Gertrude SteinRead
Truth has to be given in riddles. People can't take truth if it comes charging at them like a bull. The bull is always killed. You have to give people the truth in a riddle, hide it so they go looking for it and find it piece by piece; that way they learn to live with it.
Chaim PotokRead
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
E. E. CummingsRead
What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player.
John WoodenRead
Treat every piece of advice as a gift or a compliment and simply say, “Thank you.
Marshall GoldsmithRead